


The Origin of Theobroma

by oneiriad



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Supernatural
Genre: Community: xover_exchange, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2011-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:18:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneiriad/pseuds/oneiriad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atlantis is floating in the Pacific, suffering an influx of new personnel, and Rodney can’t help but notice a mysterious janitor – though maybe that’s just the chocolate talking…</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Origin of Theobroma

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyYueh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyYueh/gifts).



> Written for the 2010 xover_exchange for ladyyueh.  
> Thank you to porridgebird for beta services rendered.

__

Dr. McKay, if you’d please take a seat, and then we’ll take it from the top.

 

It’s not at all like you expected.

In retrospect, it’s pretty obvious that life wouldn’t just go on, like back in Pegasus. Yes, you’re still in Atlantis, you still have your base and your lab and your room – but you’re on Earth as well, no longer separated by untold light years from the rest of the known world (well, Earth) and all that that entails. In retrospect, you really should have seen it coming.

Not that all the changes are bad. The bottomless supplies of fresh coffee after the drought and rationing, the influx of support personnel that nobody would dream of sending across galaxies and into an active war zone – admittedly, it sometimes feels like you’ve been invaded by a virtual horde of wide-eyed idiots who couldn’t be bothered to pay the least bit of attention during the “how-not-to-break-the-flying-alien-city” briefing, but it’s kind of nice to leave the pipes to actual plumbers and eat food cooked by actual cooks.

Sheppard’s the first to go, because the Air Force decides to exploit his extended stay on Earth to put him through all of those courses he really should have suffered through before getting his various promotions. He sends you e-mails every other day or so, sharing stories about fellow sufferers, most of whom are apparently not a part of the program and can’t stop giving the “space telemetry” guys grief over how they’re obviously not real wartime soldiers.

Sometimes the e-mails make you smile.

Teyla leaves - for Washington, of all places, because apparently a real-life Athosian will make it more likely for the powers that be to authorize you all to return Atlantis to Pegasus, and then someone has the bright idea of offering Ronon a temporary spot on one of the Colorado gatecrews.

Then one day you and Jennifer are sitting in the cafeteria, eating lunch, when she makes a comment about how it might be nice to take a couple of months leave and go visit her dad. You’re in the middle of telling her about some promising experiments that might allow you to establish stable communications with some of your friends in Pegasus, so you have to take a moment before you manage to say that yes, that does sound nice, maybe she should do that. Three days later you’re kissing her goodbye, while a couple of burly Marines are loading her suitcases onto the helicopter to the mainland, and as you watch the machine disappear into the horizon, you can’t help but feel like you’re missing something important.

 

__

If you would please state for the record the first time you noticed the subject. 

 

It takes nearly half an hour before you give up on trying to force the broom closet door open.

“I told you, I think my cleaning cart is blocking it somehow,” says the janitor – you’ve cleverly deduced that he’s a janitor by way of his janitor’s uniform and the nametag on his chest, proudly proclaiming him to be one L. Laufeyson, Janitor. “We’re just going to have to wait until someone comes by and lets us out.”

Of course you can’t just “sit back and relax”, not when Atlantis is literally swaying around you. Swaying. A city built by the Ancients, a city built for sailing among the stars, a city that no storm, no earthquake, no tsunami on Earth should have the power to move, and nevertheless it’s been busy making you seasick since that initial tremor. You’re supposed to be out there, supposed to be trying to fix whatever the hell is wrong with the stabilizers, trying to make this swaying stop before more people die – because if anybody was caught walking down the stairs at the time you and Mr. “No-need-to-worry-the-city’s-just-coming-apart-at-the-seams” happened to be passing each other in the hallway in front of the broom closet, then they’re probably lying at the bottom of them with broken necks right about now, but you can’t do anything about that, because you’re stuck in a fucking broom closet.

For the longest time you sit in mutual silence – you doing your level best not to panic, the janitor doing, well, whatever janitors do when they’re stuck in broom closets with panicking astrophysicists. You wouldn’t know, you’re not looking at the guy.

A rustle followed by suspiciously chewing-like noises makes you glance up. The janitor stops eating his chocolate bar to tilt his head and look at you quizzically, almost as if he can hear the rant about your hyperglycemia that you’re very carefully not letting out of your mouth. As if he’s come to some decision he snaps his fingers, fishes an unopened chocolate bar out of a pocket and holds it out.

“Chocolate, Doc?”

The “Is there lemon in it? I’m deadly allergic to citrus…” is out before you can stop it, pure reflex, but oddly enough the janitor doesn’t seem to take offense, unlike so very many, just grins and wraggles the bar enticingly.

“Just pure chocolate. Promise.”

The bar isn’t any big brand, not anything you’ve ever seen before. The wrapper is gleaming silver, the word THEOBROMA (oh, how very original) written on it in sparkly red letters. But the chocolate looks innocuous enough, so you dare a bite.

The taste of chocolate explodes on your tongue, delicious and rich, feeling like an entire endorphin cascade has just been triggered inside your brain, and you can’t help yourself, you moan, a filthy, pornographic noise that wouldn’t be out of place in one of those movies the Marines keep deluding themselves into thinking you’re not perfectly aware they’re constantly trying to hide on the mainframe.

Of course, that would have to be the moment the closet door finally opens to reveal a rapidly blinking Zelenka looking down at you.

 

__

Did the subject ever do anything to attract your attention? 

 

You don’t waste a lot of thought on the encounter during the following weeks – even after you’ve disassembled and reassembled every stabilizer and force field generator in the city twice, trying in vain to hunt down the source of the malfunction, because it must be a malfunction, that sort of nasty storm shouldn’t have had that sort of effect, it should be impossible – while all the time ignoring the persistent gossip about the two Marines who had to be sent off for psych evaluations after claiming to have seen a giant serpent rising out of the sea during the storm and arching itself over the city – you’ve still got your usual work.

The reason that you waste any thoughts at all on it is the chocolate bars.

The first one appears two days after the storm. You enter your lab to find that it’s been cleaned – and for once whoever by someone who hasn’t left your papers in the usual, hopeless disarray – and a single, silvery chocolate bar lies on top of the biggest pile of papers.

It’s just as delicious the second time.

After that, hardly a day goes by without chocolate. At first, it’s just the same, plain chocolate, but then types with different fillings and odd names like Nectar and Ambrosia, Soma and Manna start to appear – but your favourite soon becomes the one that’s called Suttung’s – chocolate with honey and some sweet, red berrylike filling – absolutely delicious. As a matter of fact, it’s a Suttung’s you’re halfway through when you have to stop to berate Kavanagh for being his usual, idiotic self – you’re on quite a roll, actually – when a chuckle from the doorway turns out to be the janitor, who winks at you before pushing his cart along.

After that it’s like the janitor is everywhere. Walking out of your lab as you’re entering it, behind you in the line in the cafeteria, busily mopping the floor as the latest bunch of tourists is guided through – all with proper clearances, of course, but it feels like every bureau and agency out there has decided to make Atlantis the target of this year’s big staff outing. NSA, CIA, and the other day some FBI people brought an old man along who kept wandering off and tried to leave with his pockets stuffed with Ancient gadgets. Mind you, the mopping the floor thing was terribly convenient when a small delegation of unusually superior-acting Asgard spent half the morning pestering you – somehow you managed not to laugh out loud at the sight of oh-so-superior-can’t-even-read-a-simple-warning-sign-Brokkr slipping and falling on his little, grey butt.

The janitor laughed, though.

And then he winked at you.

 

__

Did the subject ever give you reason to suspect that he wasn’t human? 

 

“You know, we’re really going to have to stop meeting like this – it’s getting to be a bad habit.”

All in all, you feel like you can be forgiven for answering that with a glare. After all, being stuck in one of Atlantis’ cage rooms, stripped of everything except your underwear and with only a too-cheerful janitor in a similar state of undress for company – well, that wasn’t exactly how you’d planned to be spending the weekend.

And of course the cage has to be the one bit of technology in the whole goddamned city where the Ancients displayed basic common sense, putting the access panel out of reach of potential captives – and apparently your bastardized ATA gene isn’t good enough to activate any overrides.

If Sheppard was locked in here with you, he’d probably have had the cage dancing the conga by now.

This was supposed to have been a nice, quiet, relaxing weekend – Ronon, Teyla, Sheppard, all having managed to wrangle some time off, the four of you together, just relaxing, drinking beer and watching crappy movies. Of course this would have to be the weekend chosen by a bunch of terrorists – well, you thought they were terrorists, mostly because of the lack of uniforms and the odd assortment of weaponry, right up until one of them, a frail-looking teenage girl, had picked up Ronon and shaken him with the nauseatingly casual ease of an adult shaking an infant, her eyes turning pure, reflective black for just a moment – anyway, the weekend chosen by a bunch of as-yet-unidentified aliens to take over Atlantis.

“You know, Doc, if you keep pacing, you’ll wear a hole in the floor.”

If only. At least that would be a way out of here!

“Sit down, Doc. Relax. You’ll think of a way to save us all soon enough, right?”

As if you can relax at a time like this. How the janitor manages to just lounge there on the floor is beyond you.

“Well, it helps to have something nice to look at.”

Seriously, how can he be so calm?! As if getting locked up by aliens is an everyday event, nothing to get excited about? How? How can he just sit there, look at you like that?

“Seriously, Doc, chill. Your golden team’s in town, right? So it’s all going to work out just fine, right?”

And yes, of course, Sheppard’s out there, Ronon and Teyla and Zelenka and the rest, and soon enough one of them is going to make a brilliant escape. So you just need to calm down and be ready.

“That’s it.”

Unfortunately, not pacing and panicking has the lamentable side-effect of making you notice how cold it is in the cage. Cold enough to almost make you suspect the aliens of playing with the environmental controls, because it’s just not supposed to be this cold.

“You know, I know a way we could warm up…”

Huh.

Suddenly all the winking and laughing and chocolate bars, they all come together, here and now, in the janitor’s friendly leer, making it sound almost as if – “Are you flirting with me?”

“Bingo!” The leer stretches into a grin. “I knew you’d figure it out, smart guy like you.”

Oh!

Oh…

Well, that’s kind of flattering, though the circumstances are, to put it mildly, poorly chosen, not to mention awkward, but seriously? Why? Why you? Why would he even…?

“Maybe I’ve just got a kink for grumpy astrophysicists who know how to spin an insult?”

The leer is back, having been joined by a self-secure swagger as he strolls toward you. With every step closer, it feels as if it’s getting hotter.

Hotter.

Hot.

“It’s Luke, by the way.”

Luke?

“In case you need something to moan while I suck your cock.”

For a moment amber eyes look straight into yours, as if waiting for – something – protestations that you’re not gay, perhaps? Not even bi-curious, not really? Whatever it is, it apparently doesn’t appear, because next thing you know he’s kneeling down at your feet, tugging your boxers down before deep-throating you in a way you’re pretty sure never happens outside of cheap porn, and all you can do is grab hold of the bars you’re backed up against and just hang on for dear life.

Afterwards he looks up at you, his tongue flicking out to catch that hypnotizing, white drop dangling at the corner of his mouth, and snaps his fingers in the way you’ve noticed he has, like the world’s most obvious tic.

Suddenly you’re falling backwards, as the bars immediately behind you blink out of existence.

“Yep. Definitely a bad habit.”

 

__

Did you ever give the subject reason to think you suspected? 

You honestly can’t find much time in the weeks after the terrorist / alien takeover to waste on it, preferring to leave to others the wondering about the mystery voice on the speaker system speaking what a linguist is insisting was Latin in the worst accent she’s ever heard, and about the black smoke, and the fact that the Marines found themselves pointing their weapons at a bunch of very confused people, including a teenage girl who literally burst into tears and an old man who didn’t speak a single word of English, so it took weeks to identify him as a farmer from Azerbaijan. All that is somebody else’s business.

Mostly you focus on Luke.

The guy is surprisingly patient about it, letting you drag him from doctor to DNA specialist, as you try to find whatever ATA gene or secret alien identity or surprise mutation he must be hiding, because that snap can’t have been a coincidence, it must have been connected with the disappearance of the bars somehow, and you’ve already checked and rechecked to see if the sound alone could have been the triggering factor.

Unfortunately, all the testing reveals absolutely nothing – well, a DNA specialist does find Luke’s genes interesting, but since she’s using words like “Viking” instead of “Alien” or “Ancient”, you soon stop listening and start your own experiments.

You start to drag Luke into your lab and hand him various harmless Ancient artifacts, hoping he’ll somehow make one light up, even going so far as to make him snap his fingers while standing with what you’re fairly sure is a sex-change device, but nothing – and sooner or later his patience will always wear out eventually and he’ll drag you into the corner of the lab that very conveniently isn’t covered by the surveillance cameras.

You’re not sure it can be called a relationship, this thing between Luke and you. What do you call it, when someone leaves you chocolate to die for and drags you off for quick, mutual handjobs or to give you a blowjob that ought to be a crime? You did try giving him a blowjob once, but it didn’t go particularly well – at first you almost managed to choke yourself on his dick, and when you were finally getting the hang of it, even – in the spirit of scientific experimentation – trying to toy with his foreskin with your tongue, he thought it was the perfect time to tell a really filthy, really ridiculous story – and how he can focus enough to do that is beyond you, but anyway, to make a long story short, you wound up with come up your nose and him by turns laughing and apologizing.

But it’s not a relationship. You’re pretty sure a relationship would involve more, somehow – and besides, you’re not all that certain you’d want a relationship with Luke. Not that he isn’t a nice guy, but seriously, he’s a janitor. You’re a brilliant, galaxy-crossing scientist who one day soon will be getting the Nobel. It would never work.

Though the chocolate is delicious. You’ve tried to find a place to buy it, but every online search for ‘theobroma’ either leads you to pages about cocoa plants, or to one of the dozens of chocolate related businesses that has had the same idea for a name, none of which has the glittering red logo or distinct naming scheme. You ask Luke about it, once, but he just shrugs and makes a comment about this friend he’s got down south, who’s got this tiny place, strictly organic, and is always happy to supply his friends, but doesn’t actually want to start selling on the open market. It doesn’t sound quite right, but before you can ask more he rolls his eyes, saying “Honestly, sometimes I think you only like me for my chocolate”, then stops any further conversation quite efficiently, which is sort of annoying, really.

It is a very nice orgasm, though…

 

__

If you would please, using your own words, describe the events of October 23rd…

This is it, you think. This is the time you die. Not in another galaxy, not in a fight or an accident or a random, impossible natural disaster, oh no. You’re going to die right here on Earth, here in the Atlantis gateroom, because Sheppard – freshly returned to Atlantis after finally having finished the last compulsory leadership course – has just told a god to go fuck himself.

Self-appointed god.

Of course, when you’re dealing with an Ori, the difference is mostly semantic.

Anyway, you’re about to die, because said Ori looks very much like he’s about to smite the lot of you, or at least order his flunkies to do some smiting-by-proxy, and there doesn’t seem to be anything you can do about it – which is beginning to be an embarrassingly familiar feeling.

God, but sometimes you really, really miss Pegasus.

“Honestly, Kokabiel, you should stop and listen to yourself for five minutes. You sound like a bad James Bond villain.”

At least you’re not the only one who appears to be choking on something at the sight of a short guy in a janitor’s uniform strolling into the gateroom, hands in his pockets. You manage to recover fairly quickly, at least, though that just leaves you with the sickening expectation that you’re about to watch your lover get swatted like a fly, as the Ori’s flunkies take aim.

“Seriously, Koko, I used to think you were one of the smart ones.”

Only, when you glance up at the Ori, it’s the strangest thing – and you know that even at the best of times you’re not the best at reading facial expressions, and you’re definitely not an expert on Ori facial expressions – but you would swear that that, that’s a classic “deer-caught-in-the-headlights” look.

“I mean, was I not clear?”

Around you, other people are beginning to notice how very weird the situation is. Even a couple of the Ori’s flunkies are looking puzzled at their god’s behavior.

“Just leave, that’s what I said. Leave and never come back. I’ll square things with Dad, one way or the other, if you just stay away.”

There’s something wrong with the lights.

“So why couldn’t you just do that?”

Lights are blinking on and off, growing brighter and brighter with every step Luke takes, as if a thousand John Sheppards just came aboard.

“Why couldn’t you be satisfied where you were, playing with your little homonculi?”

The air starts crackling as an Ori flunky fires at Luke. You can feel the hairs on the back of your neck rising, electricity racing up your spine and down your arms, and your mouth has gone dry. You’re trying to move, not even sure if you’re going to run to or from, but find that you’re frozen to the spot.

“Why did you have to come back, little brother?”

Around you Atlantis is trembling, glass is cracking, dust is falling. Somewhere someone is screaming.

“Why couldn’t you just have stayed away?!”

And then there is light, brilliant, burning, pure beyond pure light, pouring out of Luke and the Ori, filling the world with a sound like thunder.

Shields activate seemingly by themselves, dark-tinted force fields encircling the strange lightshow, not quite managing to contain the sheer brilliance of that impossible light.

You feel your eyes watering, but you can’t make yourself look away.

A sound is growing, a shrill, screaming noise, rising and rising and rising, cutting through the world, driving you to your knees, making you cover your ears in pure self-defense, and you can feel something warm and wet against your fingers.

Then it all stops.

You look up, blinking against the sudden absence of light.

Of Luke and the Ori, there is no trace. The Ori’s flunkies are still there, and for some reason they won’t stop screaming, but you’re not one of the people moving forward to find out why.

You’re far too busy being sick.

 

__

Thank you very much for your time and cooperation, Dr. McKay. 

 

Your feet find their own way outside until you find yourself in front of a railing. You wrap your fingers around it, holding on for dear life as you fill your lungs with fresh sea air and wait for your body to stop trembling.

You can’t bear to be around other people these days. Everybody’s got their own theory about Luke the janitor – He was an Ori! He was an Ancient! He was to the Ori what the Tok’ra are to the Goa’uld! He was some sort of Asgard cloning experiment! He was a Furling! He was a Time Lord! – and everybody wants to share it with you, or so it seems.

It’s ridiculous, really. It’s not like you’re the first to have had a fling with an ascended being, knowingly or not – some days you’d almost be forgiven for thinking that it was a job requirement around here – and dammit, you even sort of managed to ascend once, yourself. This shouldn’t feel so, so…

But it does.

A bar of chocolate nudges the side of your hand.

You’ve never seen Luke wearing anything other than his janitor’s uniform, but here he is, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, a Pepsi Max cap on his head. He looks – almost worried.

“I didn’t actually mean for it to happen like this, you know.”

Oh, you know. Didn’t mean to get all tangled up with someone like you, of course not, ascended beings have higher standards than that, why go for the genius except that the usually resident James T. Kirk wannabee of Pegasus was otherwise occupied.

“Now, don’t be like that.”

That’s when you realize that of course he’s a mind reader, of course he is, all this time he’s been able to see right through you.

It makes you feel cold.

“I’m sorry.”

He sits himself on the railing, balancing as if unconcerned about the thousand foot drop behind him. Which he probably is.

“I was planning to stick around until you lot flew this baby back to your My Little Pony galaxy. Except, well – things never do turn out the way we plan, do they?”

No. They don’t. The worst part is, that would have worked. They don’t send non-essential, non-combat personnel into active war zones, and definitely not into active war zones in other galaxies. The danger money alone would probably bankrupt the program. There would have been a goodbye and maybe epic farewell sex and that would have been that, with you none the wiser.

Only, that way you would have been the one leaving him.

The thought leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

Dammit.

Dammit, why can’t you focus? There’s an unknown type of alien sitting in front of you, you should be asking him questions, demanding answers, explanations, maybe diagrams. You should be yelling, ranting, screaming. Instead you’re just standing here, practically maudlin, when you could at least be trying to find out what he is.

“I don’t think I’m going to tell you.”

What?

“What I am. I’m not going to tell you.”

Oh, that is just typical – fucking arrogant aliens with their fucking Prime Directives and…

He leans forward, amber eyes burning almost golden as they stare into yours, lips hovering right next to yours.

“I don’t want to tell you, because if I tell you the truth, you’re just going to think I’m lying to you, and if I lie – well, I don’t want to. I don’t want to lie to you. So.”

Oh.

Well, that’s. You’re not quite sure what to do with that.

Oh.

You sink down, leaning back against the railing, closing your eyes, trying to focus on the faint tingling on your lips and the feeling of fingers threading through your hair.

“When you go back to Pegasus, I could, you know, visit. Sometimes. If you want me to?”

That sounds – nice. Which is an oddly unexpected, uncomplicated feeling, yet nevertheless, there it is. It sounds – very nice, yes.

The moment is broken by the sound of distant footsteps coming closer, and you climb to your feet as Luke jumps down from the railing. It shouldn’t feel like a shock to realize he’s going to be going now, but it still does. It occurs to you that you haven’t actually said anything during this entire encounter, haven’t asked any of a thousand questions – only, there is one question that you realize that you really, really need to ask, now, before he disappears again.

So you do.

He smiles at you, then, a slow smile that fills you with warmth.

“A long, long time ago, my Father named me Gabriel.”

 

__

That will be all. 


End file.
